An Invasion of Locusts

Joel, a prophet of Israel came from literally nowhere to take the country of Israel by storm.  They had, had a great catastrophe.  As you read Joel 1:1-4 you learn that four different locust groups came and ate the vegetation.  By the time the locust attacks were done the land was dry and the people were starving. 

Into this horrible situation a confident prophet strode and said: The word of the Lord has come to me.  This natural disaster was many years in the making.  It made his pronouncements easier to make.  He told them that the locust swarms and invasion were so bad that you must remember to tell them to your children for the next four generations so they will be warned of the consequences of walking away from God.

The locust came in, in waves.  The first was a swarm.  This group ate the tops off the grain, flowers, etc.  It was the most productive part of the plant.  It is the place where the beauty and food was located in many cases.  (Not counting vegetables that grow underground and even those are affected by the chewing off of the tops)

The second wave came in and ate much of the stem, thereby destroying much of the plants ability to produce.  Its ability to thrive is severely compromised.

The third wave came in and ate the vegetation down to stubs at ground level.  This vegetation would then die or be nearly without viability.  It has little or no defense.

The fourth wave came and ate the roots and seeds of the plants and in so doing destroyed all possibility of life existing.

These waves took place over a period of years and were warnings that God was disciplining them.  It is clear that they did not listen. 

In the west we have also received similar warnings over the years.  These are the signs that I believe are warnings of God’s discipline.

The first sign was in 1963 when the Supreme Court changed the way we view prayer in school.  It could no longer be a teacher led prayer and quickly became interpreted as no prayer in school.  When this happened the prayer cover for America was blown away.  (The church was mostly silent because they were manipulated into believing that it was Biblical.)  In the 60’s the list of the most often done misbehaviors in school were chewing gum, throwing spit wads, talking, shoving people and stuffing people in a locker.  In the present decade the worst misbehaviors are drugs, sextexting, gangs, massive disrespect and lawsuits.  The protective layer of prayer is gone over our schools.

The second sign came in 1973 where two different Supreme Court decisions took the stems of our society down.  (The church was intimidated into being mostly silent.)  We lost our moral fiber when abortion on demand became legal.  A world without a moral base is in deep trouble.

The third sign came in 2001 when America was attacked.  No I don’t believe that God caused 9-11, I believe that He allowed it as a wake-up call.  (The church was cautious because they didn’t want to appear to say that God did this and be accused of serving a vindictive God.  We were cowed by arrogance.)  This showed us that we really have little or no defense against a determined enemy.  That day we lost our sense of security.

The fourth sign came in 2008 when the financial sector of much of the world was taken down.  It came about because of one thing greed.  It was the greed of those who attempted to manipulate money.  It was also because of the ones who expect that those who work want to care for those who refuse to work.  This is greed as well with a helping dollop of laziness.  This state leaves society reeling under the burden of instability. 

I am not a pessimist by nature.  But today I want to say prophetically that unless we do what they did in the time of Joel we will have similar results.  We have reached the days of critical mass.  We have destroyed by our silence the prayer covering for the world, destroyed our moral base by allowing abortion on demand and other things of that ilk, believed in the lie that we can protect ourselves and decided that we can care for ourselves without God.  We have left God out of everything.

I believe with every fiber of my body that if we will return the prayer covering to our world it is not too late.  It will not be easy, but God is calling the church to take up its place again. 

♥ We can no longer stand on the sidelines being intimidated by the fear of rejection or worse.  We will need to find the God of the Bible and obey what He leads us to do.

♥ We will need to reestablish prayer to its prominent place in the Body of Christ.  In the places where the church is growing prayer is preeminent.  Many of them have daily or weekly prayer meetings at 5 AM.  Most of them have protracted periods of prayer (40 to 120 days). 

♥ We will need to leave our comfort zones behind.  One of these comfort zones will be the “safety” of our own.  In other words we will need to quit sniping at Christians that have different labels.  Instead we need to meet together and repent of our attitude of “winning the world for Christ alone.” Where God is moving in a country or city Christians are meeting together to repent.

♥ We will need to practice self-denial.  We as the individuals and the church need to go into our inner rooms, where we will pray and fast before the Father.  Then obey what he says.

Next time some practical things the “church” can do.

The Third Awakening

The title got you didn’t it.  Well to tell you the truth I am excited.  A friend posted something this morning about truth.  It was awesome.  It got me to thinking that her message would not be popular in our culture where the idea of truth is nothing more than what is true to you.

The keys are flying under my fingers with a massive thought about this trend.  If we believe what the media, organizations and yes a few churches say, Christianity is a dead dog.  Well, I’m here to say oh no its not.  Here is what our culture says about people who take their faith in Jesus Christ seriously.

Your religion is bogus: in an article where the author was talking about putting in rooms of prayer for another religion.  Christians don’t deserve a place.

We can now decide what sex we want and abort the one we don’t want.  We are fearfully and wonderfully made.

It is claimed that same-sex marriage is not only acceptable but preferred.  This is put forth by both people in high government office and church councils.  God ordained that we it should be a man and woman.  Genesis 2:24

When a law maker (Kansas) says that we should ban the teaching of evolution in the public school because there is no scientific evidence for it, they are treated like they are an ignorant bohemian.

A child is shouted down and cursed at for singing a patriotic song at a political rally because it had God in it. 

On Sunday I was teaching a bunch of preteens about Biblical Literacy.  I told them that they should carry their Bible to school and read the passage that I ask them to read during the week.  Their eyes en masse got big and said, “We are not allowed.” 

That’s enough of that!  Now for the good stuff.

I believe that in America we are on the verge of the Third Great Awakening.  That means that a major outpouring of God’s Spirit is on its way.  This Great Awakening will be different that the other two. 

The first Great Awakening was led by traveling revivalists.  They were Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield.  They primarily spoke to the church.  (In the 1730’s and 1740’s most people went to church so the church needed awakening)    They mainly focused on repentance and living your life for God in front of people.

The second Great Awakening was led by revivalists, lay preachers and ordinary citizens.  It focused on salvation, holiness, changing culture, and living life of the Lord.  This started about 1790 and lasted until about 1880.

The third Great Awakening will be led by committee Christians who don’t listen to what someone says about them or does to them.  Listen “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”  1 John 4:4

Here are the marks of what it will take for the third Great Awakening to take place:

1. There will be great repentance in the Christian faith.  2 Chronicles 6:12-42 tells us that Solomon prayer 6-8 times to heal our land.  In every case the healing takes place when the people repent of their sin.  When the churches get out of the way and allow the Spirit to show what He would like to do, then the Awakening will begin.
2. There will be a huge outpouring of prayer.  People will be spending the hour that Jesus asked His disciples (you are one) to watch and pray with Him for one hour.  That seems to be a minimum.  This Great Awakening will be led by unnamed masses that will take seriously their call to pray and will begin to take the idea of one hour as a beginning point. 
3. There will be many who will be called to fast.  Fasting in combination with prayer will one of the catalyst for the Awakening.  These fasts will be of many varieties.  They could be the simple 3 or 4 day fasts of our grandparents.  It could also be the longer 10 day, 14 day and 21 day fasts that Scripture talks about.  There may even be a few who are called to do the 40 day fast that Jesus did.  Note this is a calling.  (A major note here: Jesus said when you fast.  Matthew 6:16, 17  He didn’t say if, but when.  The joys and benefits for fasting are many.)
4. There will be many who will put Christ first.  (Matthew 6:33)  They will trust Him alone for their life.  Oh yes they will do everything they can to provide for themselves, but will let the worry of life (6:34) to be placed in His hands and not carry it around anymore.
5. There will be a massive upsurge in people wanting to know the God of the Bible and not the God they see lived out in the average Christian.  To accomplish this there will be churches, businesses and organizations that will sponsor “Getting to Know God” events.  These will be multi-hour events where people will be given resources to search out God for themselves in the Word.
6. There will be people, who God will rise up to teach people how to pray, be a prayer warrior and intercessors.  These people will be the new itinerant evangelists.  It appears that they will not all be big names, in fact they may be the “little people” who God can use to do this.
7. There will be a lot of people who will understand what it means to sacrifice, be willing to be persecuted and in some cases die for the cause of the Great Awakening.

YES it is coming.  Get on board!  There is no other name on earth by which we may be saved.  (Acts 4:12)  So let’s get together and invite the Holy Spirit to reign in our culture.

In today's post we are going to look at the idea that desperation before God in prayer is quite important. (Today's devotional is drawn from Psalm 13:3)

David was being chased by Saul here and he was in dire circumstances, Saul wanted to kill him. (We have all been in tough circumstances. Maybe some of you are right now. Then this post is for you.) So read on and see what David learned from God.

First, he says to the Lord says look at me. When life is hard, it feels like God is far away. In life's struggles we want to scream (!) for God to look our way. We ask, why oh why is He allowing this to happen to me? We also ask questions like: Why can't I ever seem to get ahead? Why can't I be healed? Why do I have to face so much criticism? Why do so many bad things happen to me. In short we find ourselves in desperation trying to get God's attention to do something for us.

These are all good and legitimate questions. But they are not the best questions to ask of God. Instead ask these two questions in your desperation (what do you have to lose): 

a. God will you show yourself in this? He will!

b. What is that you want me to learn in this? A difficult question that can only be answered for those who want the answer. Ten years ago I started having difficulty walking or even shaking hands. I was pretty close to being disabled with Gout and Osteoarthritis. When I finally got around to asking Him what I needed learn from this because I was miserable. I then became desperate and now know why. He was wanting me to learn about prayer and begin teach others about prayer.

Second, he says, answer me, my God. Can you hear him shouting this loudly. You feel like that sometimes don't you? You want to shout at God to answer you. Well, go ahead and SHOUT because it will help you be honest and express a really deep set of needs to God. When you do this, your level of desperation is really high and you are willing to acknowledge His sovereignty. In other words you say He is in charge of your life and not yourself. Then you will begin to see some answers.

Third, he says, tell me or I will die. This concludes the trilogy of heart-wrenching questions that David asks. To be totally honest with each other, we have in our heart of hearts at one time wished we could die and be done with our lives. Somehow you knew in yourself that that was a wrong decision. So hung on. Good! Now hang on a little longer. The next two posts will continue to speak about this.

In the next post: Part 2 of Desperation before God is a Key. The following post will be: Things to Do when Life Sucks (to my friends who will be bothered by that word, let me say it's a descriptive word about what life is like sometimes, not an innuendo.)

Today, I am going to write the first of a series of devotional thoughts about Psalm 13. In this psalm there can be found a desperate man, David, calling out to God with all that he had.
First, a little background. It is likely that David wrote this psalm/song/prayer while being pursued by Saul in the mountains. This prayer was used by the Israelite's (and us) to ask for help in the face of long term struggles, illness, persecution, poverty, etc.
One of the keys to this psalm is found in the first two verses where David asks the same question four times. "How long?" I know for sure that we have all asked that question many times. In this prayer David is weeping in grief. These four questions form the basis for the devotional today.

1. How long will you forget me, Lord? Will it be forever?! This is a question that people of all eras of history have asked. But just like us they expected God to give them a microwave answer. They wanted an instant solution. Sometimes God says wait awhile because He wants us to learn something.

2. How long will you hide from me? In the heat of the battle we all wonder where God is. He is not absent as we suppose. He is busy working out all things for our good. 

3. How long must I worry and feel sad in my heart all day long? This is another ageless question. Every person has asked this question. The answer is not an easy one, but a clue is found at the end of Matthew 6. Jesus says each day has enough trouble of it's own. He says to concentrate on today and to do all you can to make things right and then trust Him for the rest. In other words the worries for tomorrow should be left to Him.

4. How long will my enemy win over me? Yikes, that is close isn't it? It seems that everybody has had someone taunt, bully, discourage us by attacking us physically, verbally or emotionally. 

These four questions come from the depths of our souls and deserve an answer. In the next day or two you can read here what has been learned.

But for today, know this: It is alright to ask God these tough questions. He is not bothered by honest and brutal questions. He doesn't remove His love from us because we question Him. In fact, He uses these times of questioning to build us up for His purposes. Because He works all things together for His purposes.

A simple prayer: Oh Lord, I need relief. I trust in You for that relief. I am waiting patiently (sort of) for Your answer and teaching.